I don't use the site, and it's honestly gotten full of low-effort spam since 2014/15 or so, but it's got its gems (e.g., how Dan Zhang managed through sheer chance to provide an authoritative ranking of CS grad programs, purely due to how heavily Quora got used by international grad students who didn't have much access to better sources than people on the Internet). There's also deedy's old post about the manipulation he found in Indian test scores. Some really great content, tbh.

Also a good place to get a better handle on some people. Jimmy Wales, for example, at one time seemed to message just about anyone who criticized him the site (I've got a few of those). You know the rule of thumb that what a person's got to say is only worth as much as the lowest level detractor they bothered responding to? You find a lot of such fragilistas on old Quora. For a couple years, it was a real beautiful place.

I learned more and made more connections on Quora than i did in a decade of higher education. But it has gone downhill as it has grown. When it was small/medium sized it was insane how many ridiculously smart/talented/accomplished people were hooked on the site, who you could easily interact with. Now many have left or they have massive followings and you’ll be interacting with people like OP.

BNBR is annoying at first and it would suck if the whole internet were that way — but it serves a valuable purpose on Quora. For one: the site is full of women. If people were allowed to be dicks and say crude shit to them, it’s unlikely it would be the way it is. Which is fairly close to the real world in terms of %’s and how people treat each other.

Does early 2011 count as the beginning? Or are we just talking 2010 here?

I've been on plenty of "magical" places on the internet, full of really smart people, that have been advertised as better than college. Freshman year, I thought that could've been true. But now I'm having a really hard time imagining a place that really builds robust knowledge. You can get little bits of cleverness here and there, sure, but not an entire field. Even the stuff coming from people going out of their way to "teach" an entire field tends to be dumbed-down significantly.

I'm sure everyones experience is different. The knowledge is there. The people are there. Whether you learn all of that shit or network with all of those people is another matter. I was successful at both and it was very rewarding.